Category Archives: Lighthouses

A total of $35,000 was awarded in the second year of the Lighthouse Preservation Grants Program, drawing on the interest from a still-growing investment fund that the U.S. Lighthouse Society has committed to increase through the years so that more and larger preservation grants can be made.

Morris Island Lighthouse

The Save the Light Foundation in Charleston, S.C., will use a $10,000 grant from the Society’s corporate partner, the SeaPak Division of Rich Products Corp., St. Simons Island, Georgia, to fund a detailed study of the very historic but erosion-threatened and decaying Morris Island Lighthouse.

The Morris Island project was a finalist in this year’s grants program, and was selected by the seafood company for its first program donation. The Charleston group will use the grant to gain a definitive assessment of the condition of the cofferdam-protected lighthouse and determine what steps can be taken, in what order and at what cost, to preserve the structure. International Chimney Corp., movers of the Cape Hatteras Light and other lighthouses, will do the work.

Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse

A $9,000 grant was awarded to the Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse Trust in Maine to replace the lantern vent ball on the breakwater lighthouse and repair damage in the lantern caused by water intrusion. The entire project will cost $20,700.

On the Great Lakes, the Michigan Lighthouse Conservancy will use a $9,000 grant to complete a $32,375 project to fabricate and install damaged or missing parts of the handrail system in the tower and on the lantern gallery at the Muskegon South Pierhead Lighthouse.

Muskegon South Pierhead Lighthouse

Pensacola Lighthouse

A $7,000 grant will be given to the Pensacola Lighthouse Foundation to restore a long-lost iron pedestal to the top of the lighthouse and use it to support a lens that now is suspended from the lantern roof. The pedestal was found a few years ago in the woods near the tower, and has been restored. The grant will go toward the $17,589 project to place it back in its proper location to support the lens and curtail the structural damage caused by the current system.

This year’s grants mark a slight increase from last year’s $31,000 in assistance to efforts to repair the lantern and replace a ventilator ball on the Sentinel Island Lighthouse near Juneau, Alaska; to help replace windows and shutters at the Toledo Harbor Lighthouse in Ohio; and to start work on a detailed plan to restore the masonry basement at Race Rocks Lighthouse in Long Island Sound near New London, Connecticut.

Boston Harbor Lighthouse

In addition, the Society’s program will administer a second grant from its first corporate preservation partner, the Lands’ End clothing company of Wisconsin. Last year, Lands’ End committed funding to launch the Society’s detailed study of preservation needs at the Alcatraz Island Lighthouse, a Society project in San Francisco Bay. This year, the Society and Lands’ End leaders traveled in late July to Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor to present an initial $30,000 check to restore the foundation of the Boston Light’s iconic boathouse; the work will allow the boathouse to reopen to the public, and the gift celebrates the 300th anniversary of the country’s first lighthouse.

At this point the Society’s program is open only to not-for-profit groups, with a maximum grant amount of $10,000. As the dedicated preservation fund grows, more grant money will be made available for future projects. Information on donating to the fund or applying for future grants may be found on the Society’s website.

Whereas August 7, 2013, marks the 224th anniversary of the signing by President George Washington of the Act entitled ‘An Act for the establishment and support of lighthouses, beacons, buoys, and public piers’, approved August 7, 1789 (commonly known as the ‘Lighthouse Act of 1789’) (1 Stat. 53, chapter 9);

Whereas that Act, the ninth act of the 1st Congress, established a Federal role in the support, maintenance, and repair of all lighthouses, beacon buoys, and public piers necessary for safe navigation, commissioned the first Federal lighthouse, and represents the first public works act in the young United States;

Whereas the establishment of the United States system of navigational aids set the United States on a path to the forefront of international maritime prominence and established lighthouses that played an integral role in the rich maritime history of the United States, as that history spread from the Atlantic coast, through the Great Lakes and the Gulf coast, to the Pacific States;

Whereas those iconic structures, standing at land’s end through 2 centuries, have symbolized safety, security, heroism, duty, and faithfulness;

Whereas architects, designers, engineers, builders, and keepers devoted, and in some cases jeopardized, their lives for the safety of others during centuries of light tending by the United States Lighthouse Service and the United States Coast Guard;

Whereas the automation of the light system exposed the historic lighthouse towers to the ravages of time and vandalism and yet, at the same time, opened an opportunity for citizen involvement in efforts to save and restore those beacons that mark the evolving maritime history of the United States and its coastal communities;

Whereas the national lighthouse preservation movement has gained momentum over the past half century and is making major contributions to the preservation of maritime history and heritage and, through the development and enhancement of cultural tourism, to the economies of coastal communities in the United States;

Whereas the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-355; 114 Stat. 1385), enacted on October 24, 2000, and with the aid of the lighthouse preservation community, provides an effective process administered by the General Services Administration and the National Park Service for transferring lighthouses to the best possible stewardship groups;

Whereas, for the past several decades, regional and national groups have formed within the lighthouse preservation community to promote lighthouse heritage through research, education, tourism, and publications;

Whereas the earliest and largest regional preservation group, the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association, headquartered in Michigan, marks its 30th anniversary in 2013, and the largest and oldest national group, the United States Lighthouse Society, which relocated from San Francisco, California, to the State of Washington in 2008, marks its 30th anniversary in 2014;

Whereas other groups have also been formed to promote lighthouse preservation and history, many with regional chapters, including–

(1) a national leadership council and forum named the American Lighthouse Council (formerly the American Lighthouse Coordinating Committee), currently headquartered in Illinois;

Whereas major lighthouse publications, including the United States Lighthouse Society’s Keeper’s Log and the Lighthouse Digest, contribute greatly to the promotion of lighthouse heritage and preservation;

Whereas single-lighthouse preservation efforts by individuals or organizations, including historical societies and governments, have even longer histories, including preservation efforts in–

(1) Grosse Point, Illinois, established in 1935;

(2) Buffalo, New York, established in 1962;

(3) Navesink Twin Lights, New Jersey, established in 1962;

(4) Point Fermin, California, established in 1970;

(5) Charlotte-Genesse near Rochester, New York, established in 1965;

(6) Key West, Florida, established in 1969;

(7) Split Rock Lighthouse, Minnesota, established in 1971;

(8) Ponce de Leon Inlet, Florida, established in 1972;

(9) St. Augustine, Florida, established in 1981; and

(10) Fire Island, New York, established in 1982;

Whereas, despite progress, many lighthouses in the United States remain threatened by erosion, neglect, vandalism, and deterioration by the elements;

Whereas Congress passed, and President Ronald Reagan signed, a Joint Resolution entitled ‘Joint Resolution designating the day of August 7, 1989, as ‘National Lighthouse Day’, approved November 5, 1988 (Public Law 100-622; 102 Stat. 3201), in honor of the bicentennial of the United States Lighthouse Service; and

Whereas the many completed, ongoing, or planned private and public efforts to preserve lighthouses demonstrate the public support for those historic structures: Now, therefore, be it